Game Night
by Tyramir
Summary: Left to their own devices for one evening, Tim Drake gathers a few friends for a night of harmless nerd-fun.


Author's Note:

My fanfiction career's pretty much coming to an end on account of working on my book, and my new webcomic, Welcome Back to Eden. After this, I only foresee finishing off one more FF7 fanfic, and then I'm done (for now). That said, I don't own, well, any characters from DC, which in this case includes Tim Drake (Robin), Stephanie Brown (Spoiler/Robin/Batgirl), Cassandra Cain (Batgirl), Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle), or Helena Bertinelli (Huntress).

This storyline takes place before the death of Bruce Wayne (as I wrote it before then).

Game Night

"I can't believe you talked me into this."

It wasn't the first time Steph had said it. It certainly wouldn't be the last.

Tim forced a smile. "Think of it as an experiment--"

"Hello? What do I look like? So not into experimentation," she replied, but there was no heat in it at all.

"Come on, Steph. Broaded your horizons a little. Cass seems okay with it."

"I love Cass to pieces," she countered, "But she has some funny ideas sometimes."

"It's not like I'm asking you to do anything dangerous."

"No, just vomit-worthy."

"Wizards and Warriors is not vomit-worthy!" Tim said, perhaps a little too vehemently.

Cass, who had been holding aloft and carefully examining a small, plastic figurine of a female ninja, peered from it, and said, "This is to be me in this … game?"

"Yes," Tim said, crossing his arms and trying not to glare at Steph. He knew she was just teasing him, but there were some things he was overly defensive about. Wizards and Warriors was one of them.

"The figure," Cass said. "Its pose is too exposed. Too much weight is placed on the left foot. This character is hardly worthy of being called a ninja."

Steph grabbed a figurine at random from the box that lay on the table, handing it to Cass. "Here, you can play with this one then."

"What is it?"

Tim glanced at it, and said, "A Paladin."

"What is a Paladin?"

"Oh, usually a fighter-type. Self-righteous, overly proud, uptight, tends to think everyone should measure up to his standards of goodness--"

Steph cut him off, "Usually answers to the name of 'Batman.'"

The door clicked open, and Jaime poked his head in. "Hey, uh, I'm totally up for a game of Wizards and Warriors, but I just heard 'Batman', and if he's here..."

"Get in here, Jaime," Tim growled. "I'm going to run this game, and you guys are going to play, and we're going to have fun. So sit down."

Jaime held his hands up defensively, but he came in, dropping a bag beside the table before sitting down. "Didn't work up the nerve to ask Oracle to join the game, did you?"

"He doesn't want her to think he's a nerd," Steph said through a grin.

"I am not a nerd." Then, in an effort to change the subject before Steph tossed another barb his way, he quickly asked, "So, what are you playing as, Jaime?"

"I haven't played in more than a year, not since Brenda decided that DMing for me and Paco was a waste of her talents, but I put together a spellcaster that focuses on detection and nuke spells. Couldn't remember what were good skill choices, so I'll get to that now."

"You have plenty of time," Tim said. "I still need to teach these two how to play."

"Yeah," Steph said. "We need to be nerdified in order to learn the game."

"This isn't a nerdy game!"

Cass was looking intently at the large volume that was as thick as her arm as if it were some unknown foe. "This is the instruction manual?"

"Well, yes. The main rules anyway. Then there's the errata books and the side-stuff for optional features of the game, and..." He tapered off, realizing the futility of trying to get Cass to read all the rules for Wizards and Warriors, or even the bare bones stuff. "I'll teach you how. We have time before Helena gets here anyway."

"Helena?" Jaime said. "You sly dog. How many girls do you have coming to this thing?"

"Huntress. I couldn't bring myself to invite Oracle, but--" He stopped when he realized that both Steph and Jaime were staring at him, their jaws wide open. "What? She's my friend, and she said she had nothing better to do."

"Hey, I've got nothing against her," Jaime said. "I've never even met her. But some people say she's as scary as the Bat. And I already said that if Bats was here, I was out."

"She's not that bad!"

"Just a little trampy," Steph said through a grin.

"This coming from Miss Teen Pregnant."

"Low blow! But good to see someone got his sense of humour back."

"Wait, Robin has a sense of humour?" Jaime asked incredulously.

"Only on a full moon, and after every other Crisis. Anyway, don't you think Huntress will get all frustrated with your nerd-game and throw you off a roof for making her play?"

Tim tried to ignore that.

Cass, who'd been flipping through the pages experimentally, and gazing more at the pictures than at the words, spoke up once more. "I wish to play this character. Teach me how."

Tim leaned forward, looking at the page, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"This is an Elven healer. Are you sure? They have next to no fighting skills."

"You play this game to … run from the real world. I want to play a healer."

"Well, if Cass doesn't want to play the ninja, dibs!" Steph said.

Jaime chuckled. "Heh, someone from the Bat-clan wants to play a ninja, go figure."

"What's the supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, nothing. You guys just seem to be all 'hide in the shadows' and are all 'silent death.' Except, uh, no death, because you Bat-people don't kill, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Didn't mean anything by it. Just saying. But ninjas do suck."

Tim feared the tongue-lashing that Jaime was about to receive, and was surprised it was only limited to Steph sticking hers out.

"Okay, guys, I guess I should start teaching you how to play, even if Helena's not here yet. This is going to be hard, since it's a really big game, with a lot of funny ideas on the rules which can be easily abused or misinterpreted, so--"

Just then, the door opened up once more, and Helena stepped in, her nose buried deeply in a manual. "Hey guys. Sorry I'm late. Had to pick up some supplemental rule books since I decided I wanted to make a dual-class Thief/Illusionist, but my spell choices were a little too limited for my liking. I was going to ask Oracle to download some for me, but then decided not to. I don't want her thinking that I'm a big nerd or anything." She looked about, to see all four with their mouths open in surprise. "What?"

Author's Note:

If you enjoy my work, I recommend checking me out at Welcome Back To Eden, which can be found at welcomebacktoeden(dot)com


End file.
